Category Archives: Daily

Post navigation

Northern north Georgia already has some Wintery mess and schools have closed early. Here in southern north Georgia (in the north metro-Atlanta area), we have some ice on trees. I’m charging cell phones, batteries, tablet, and 3DS as I write. (Icy trees + Georgia = power outages)

As expected: toilet paper, milk, and bread are already scarce in some locations. Probably scarce, but not reported: beer. Georgians know how to prepare (at the last minute) for a Winter weather event that will probably amount to nothing. I hope.

I can’t wait for Summer. Our Winter hasn’t been bad here (knock on wood) in Georgia. The coldish damp is just making me antsy for sunshine. I want real sunshine, not the pale imitation thereof to which we’ve been subjected for the last few months.

If I can’t have sunshine, at least I can plan for sunshine. In this area, the promise of sunshine can mean only one thing: tomato planting season.

I’m dreaming of a tomato bumper crop. It probably won’t happen; the last two years we planted tomatoes, they were gobbled up (greens and all) by deer. It was heartbreaking. I’m not sure I want to go through all the hassle and business associated with deer-proofing a tomato garden (been there, done that, never worked). So I’m planting the next best things this year: squash and cucumber.

Deer don’t like squash and cucumber. Before maturing, they both have little prickly nubs on them that hurt deer mouths. I’ve planted both here successfully (and boy, how – I planted cucumbers so successfully one year we had to pickle most of them). I’m hoping to repeat that year’s crop this year.

Last week was eventful. I found out that I can no longer eat peanut butter. Well, I can’t eat peanuts. So no peanut butter. Exactly how I discovered this is perhaps a tale better left untold, particularly if you have a weak stomach and/or if you just ate. I’ll say that a rash was involved. I’ll leave the rest up to your imagination.

To fully understand what a calamity this is to me, I guess I need to explain how important peanut butter is to my diet. Seriously. If my cravings were to be explained in a food pyramid, it would look something like this.

Yes… comic sans font. That is how juvenile I recognize my cravings to be.

Why are you laughing? This is a disaster! I buy peanut butter in 4 pound tubs. And yes, I know: I have the taste buds of a 12 year old boy.

You thought I was joking about the 4 pound peanut butter tub stuff, huh?

I have serious roasted peanut cravings. Mr Peanut and I are long-time friends. He’s practically family. But peanuts and I no longer agree with each other.

So… no peanuts for me. This is a serious problem, aside from my peanut butter addiction. Peanuts are in practically everything. Have you tried to find granola bars that aren’t processed with peanuts? Pft. Can’t find them. The entire breakfast isle is practically off limits to me now.

Sniff.

I know that you are not supposed to base your nutrition on peanut butter and Taco Bell. I know. I fully believe in living a paleo/low carb lifestyle as prescribed by Gary Taubes. The problem with living paleo/low carb is that the lifestyle is stinkin’ expensive. I am a freelance artist; there is no room in my budget for all the moo meat I want. (And believe me, I want. See that food pyramid above for reference.) I’m lucky to get beans and rice and I know it. (I suppose it’s a good thing that I also crave Taco Bell.)

My new peanut butter ban is a serious issue to both the budget and my daily protein intake. I’m looking for options, both on the cheap protein and on the cravings.

Luckily, it’s Fall. The exception to that cravings pyramid above occurs in the Fall. If my Fall cravings were to be explained with a food pyramid, it would look something like this.

This isn’t what I eat, it’s what I want to eat. I’ll feel this way right up until late Winter.

You keep laughing at me like that, you’re going to hurt my feelings. Just saying.